Saturday, March 26, 2011

Sweet Dulce

The road to Dulce's house

The front gate.

Over a year ago, our church, First Parish in Brookline UUA, decided to sponsor a little girl through Common Hope. We chose an 8-year-old named Dulce. Last April, our church vision team was able to meet her. Our friends Anne and Jim, who are visiting us for a week, were on the vision team. Rather than just being tourists, Anne and Jim worked most of the week at Common Hope, using both their brains - working with staff - and their brawn - working on construction. One of the things we were able to do together was to visit Dulce and her family.

It was a short van ride to the drop-off point, and then a 20 minute walk up a steep path to their house. Jack and Jim alternated carrying the very heavy food bag that we were bringing them and that they so appreciated. We were amazed that Dulce and the family navigated this every day.

Our visit with Dulce was lovely. She is still the sweet, quiet yet poised little girl that we met last year, with big beautiful eyes and a shy smile. She is now almost 10, in 3rd grade and doing well. Her favorite subject is math and she still wants to be a doctor.

Looking a the tiny one-room house where five of them live, we saw the quilt on Dulce's bed that the people of our church had made for her, with "the shirts off our back." Her mother also brought out the doll that we had given her.

We read The Cat and the Hat with her and she reads well. Her older brother was also a sponsored Common Hope child and had just graduated from high school and is doing a computer course in college. What a success story for this family. What a huge difference Common Hope can make! And Dulce has a whole church rooting for her.

About Us

We're travelling to Antigua, Guatemala and, for two months, will be working with Common Hope, the child sponsorship organization that we support and admire. Of course, we'll also do some travelling on the weekends, take some Spanish courses and generally enjoy being expats again.